There haven't really been that many sci-fi noirs. “Dark City” and “Blade Runner” are the only two that spring to mind, and “Dark City” is hampered somewhat by its nostalgia for the 1940s. Back in the 1940s and 50s, when the original noirs were made, people didn't dress in trenchcoats and fedoras to be cool and retro. If you had gone out on the streets of any American city, you would have seen a sea of trenchcoats and fedoras. That's just how people dressed back then.

Blade Runner doesn't fall into the nostalgia trap. It creates its noir atmosphere by building up a new type of dark city, the cyberpunk metropolis, with sky-high billboards and flashing neon and weary, relentless rain. Blade Runner's city feels like a real place, and the film noir feeling of it is that much more authentic as a result.

Of course, it's also a richly nuanced story with multiple layers to chew on and ponder over, a new take on the world-weary private eye (this time it's a guy who hunts rogue androids or “replicants”), a new take on the femme fatale (she is, of course, an escaped replicant) and a brilliant, homicidal bad guy you feel genuine sympathy for even though you know he has to get taken down.

Blade Runner is one in a thousand, a four-star sci-fi movie and a four-star neo-noir at the same time. Best of all, it just gets better every time you watch it.